“I must.”

With a horrible deftness, he raised his big callused fist and smashed it down on the back of her neck. Disbelief and the stunning strength of the blow dropped her to her knees; pain stabbed through her.

Barky...don’t do this to me...

She didn’t know if she moaned aloud. The leaves soaked through her knees and a twig stuck in her shoe.

There was a sound. What? Where?

She tried to get up. Her head ached.

She heard the thud of another blow, and her head dropped forward as the shaft of pain sliced through her. She went down next to her brother. Get up...you have to get up. You have to follow him!

The rain stopped. All around her she could smell the musty dankness of the woods.

She picked herself up and looked around, but there was nothing, just her brother, her twin, writhing in pain as he moaned into the ground.

“Oh, God. What have I done?”

15

The screen door banged behind him as Jeremy walked out of the farmhouse and stood on the flat step, next to the dried-up, tangled rag mop. The air smelled faintly of wet chicken manure. It was dusk and no one seemed to be around, although the Jaguar, Land Rover and truck were all parked in the horseshoe driveway.

He cut between the red shed and the house and headed up the slope to the outbuildings. He glanced in the chicken yard. Hens clucked at him. He checked the barn, the pigpen, the sheep pen.

Where the hell were Ashley and David?

Impatient, he tucked his thumbs in his jeans pockets and looked out behind the barn, across the fields.

Two figures were moving slowly down the edge of the nearest field. One in jeans, one in silk. One male, one female. The Wakefield twins. Soaked. Clinging to each other. Bedraggled and worth millions. David was practically swamping his sister, who seemed to be holding him up entirely on her own.

Then Ashley dropped her brother and sank to her knees.

Jeremy flew. He slid in the wet grass, and the cold wind sliced through him. Neither slackened his pace.

When he reached Ashley, she was trying to get her brother back up. David’s face was ashen. Hers was flushed with pain and exertion.

Jeremy stifled a rush of panic when he noticed the unnatural angle of David’s leg and the angry bruise on the back of Ashley’s neck. His throat tightened. “Ashley, it’s all right. Take it easy.”

She couldn’t speak. He tore off his shirt and threw it over her shoulders. She made a move to give it to her brother, but Jeremy stopped her. “I’ll get David to my car,” he told her. “Then I’ll come back for you. It’ll be okay.”

He hoisted the taller David onto his back and shoulders caveman style and felt himself sinking into the wet ground. David was no lightweight. Grateful for the downward slope, Jeremy moved as rapidly as he could; his calves screamed in protest and his back ached.